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The reasons to become vegetarian or vegan seem to keep mounting up. People have long been vegetarian for ethical or health reasons. These days the climate has become a third motivation for either giving up or trying to limit how much meat and animal products we eat.
I became vegetarian when I was 16. It lasted a couple of years, about as long as my Goth phase.
In my vegetarian days, veggie burgers and sausages were dry, bland and unappetising. So I have been fascinated to see the recent improvement in and expansion of such products on the supermarket shelves.
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Vegan influencers seem everywhere, and restaurant menus have a growing number of vegan options – so much so that some vegetarians complain vegan dishes are displacing veggie ones.
And the UK Government has this year put £15m into research on meat substitutes, such as lab-grown meat and foods made from farmed insects or fungal sources, through a new National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre.
But perhaps they shouldn’t be quite so confident about that.
In the UK, after rising for several years, they reached a peak in 2021. But since then, they have fallen three years running, by 7 per cent the first year, then 6 per cent, and then by 9 per cent, according to supermarket sales figures from Circana.
Meat substitutes like vegan sausages can make a plant-based diet easier (Photo: Emma Farrer/Getty)
Shift away from processed food
One often-proposed explanation is that it is being driven by the cost of living crisis of recent years, as some meat substitutes foods can be pricier than just buying more ordinary fruit and vegetables.
An idea I find more convincing is the growing interest in eating less processed kinds of food, which has happened in the past few years. “Consumers want more real food,” said Julian Mellentin, an analyst with New Nutrition Business. “Some burger or sausage that’s been made with soy isolates just doesn’t cut it. They have very long ingredient lists.”
Yet, most official health advice is that red meat is unhealthy because of its saturated fat and that it raises the risk of bowel cancer.
This theory is championed by the current US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy but has been getting increasing exposure on social media for some time, leading to some people even adopting a carnivore diet.
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“If something is exciting and new, people like to try it,” said Professor Frédéric Leroy, a food scientist at the Free University of Brussels. “But if they don’t give you the same satisfaction, the popularity will fade after a while.”
But in 2023, a San Francisco firm called Hooray Foods developing “fake bacon” closed down due to economic challenges. Last year the UK sandwich chain Pret a Manger converted its last specialist outlets selling only vegetarian or vegan meals to regular stores. The firm said it was because every store has veggie options, but it did seem a sign of the times.
If it’s just that meat substitutes aren’t palatable enough yet, then better products may well emerge in future that can make people long-term converts. That is the hope of Professor Anwesha Sarkar, head of the UK’s new National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre.
I hope that Professor Sarkar’s efforts are successful, not just for the climate but also for those people who really want to avoid eating meat, but just find current plant-based substitutes too unpalatable – like teenaged me.
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The UK is the first country to legalise the technique, in order to help women with faulty mitochondria, the cell’s energy-producing structures.
I’ve been reading
I only read it because it was my book club’s selection. The blurb says it is about an elderly woman who makes psychic predictions that start to come true, and I’m a sceptic about such stuff.
But against my wishes, I became absolutely engrossed. Moriarty is such a skillful writer that while I didn’t believe the plot, I absolutely believed in her characters. I will be giving it nine out of ten at my book club tonight.
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